ficent effect of the combined length, covered, as it
was, with fruit, flowers, and a plethora of bright red bonbons and
crackers. The girls wore their prettiest evening frocks; the turkey,
the goose, the plum-pudding, and the mince-pies were all paragons of
their kind, while dessert was enlivened by the discovery of small
surprise presents cunningly hidden away within hollowed oranges, apples,
and nuts. Silver thimbles, pocket-calendars, stamp-cases, sleeve-links,
and miniature brooches, made their appearance with such extraordinary
unexpectedness that Darsie finally declared she was afraid to venture to
eat even a grape, lest she might swallow a diamond alive!

When the hilarious meal had come to an end, the company adjourned into a
drawing-room illumined by firelight only, but such firelight! For over
a week those logs had been stacked by the kitchen grate so that they
might become "as dry as tinder."

Placed in the big grate, they sent up a leaping, crackling flame which
was in itself an embodiment of cheer, and when the sixteen chairs were
filled and ranged in a circle round the blaze, there was a Christmas
picture complete, and as goodly and cheery a picture as one need wish to
see. A basket of fir-cones stood at either side of the grate, and the
order of proceedings was that each guest in turn should drop a cone into
the heart of the fire, and relate an amusing story or coincidence the
while it burned. Results proved that the amount of time so consumed
varied so strangely that suggestions of foul play were made by more than
one raconteur.

"It's not fair! Some one has got at these cones! Some of them have
been soaked to make them damp!--"

Be that as it may, no one could possibly have foretold who would happen
to hit on this particular cone, so that the charge of injustice fell
swiftly to the ground.

Mrs Garnett opened the ball with a coincidence taken from her own life,
the cone burning bright and blue the while.

"When I was a girl of twenty, living at home with my father and mother,
I had a curiously distinct dream one night about a certain Mr
Dalrymple. We knew no one of that name, but in my dream he appeared to
be a lifelong friend. He was a clergyman, about sixty years of age--not
handsome, but with a kind, clever face. He had grey hair, and heavy
black eyebrows almost meeting over his nose. I was particularly
interested in his appearance, because--this is the exciting part!--in
my dream I